Things to Do - Go West!

(I banned McDonald's from our house after I read The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (thank god for Elevation Burger), but I still allow it as a special treat on vacation, which creates all the wrong incentives for teaching my children about healthy food, but it makes for happy kids during stressful travel times).
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After college graduation I moved to Denver, CO with some friends from high school. I'm not sure why I decided to go, at the time I'd never skied and wasn't into hiking (though I am now), but I didn't have another plan and it seemed like a fun place to live for awhile. And I loved it - the place, the people I met, the fact that whenever you ask someone in Denver what they "do" they assume you mean what they do as a hobby; in other words, whether you snowboard or ski, whether you hike or climb, how many 14ers you've "bagged." So different from the east coast where strangers spend HOURS explaining their jobs to you. (I've learned to be cautious when asking people what they "do"). Anyways, I miss it there and I miss my friends who live there, especially because all of them now have kids whose ages are approximately the same as my kids' ages. But my husband works a lot so we can't exactly fly across the country on a whim. But I don't work. And February is a long month for SAHMs. And T still flies for free. So, five weeks ago, off we went - one adult, three kids venturing out west. Our trip went something like this - we drove to the airport, to take a bus (the car shuttle) to a plane to a train (inside the airport) to a bus (car rental shuttle) to a rental car to drive to CAR's (fun acronym) house. And, upon arrival, some of my favorite people and a huge glass of wine greeted us at the door.

So now I know I can fly alone with three kids and it isn't that bad. If you're considering doing so yourself, I advise trying to fly into and out of relatively empty airports (in our case Baltimore and Denver) so you can find vacant terminals and let the kids loose for awhile.

Oh and if you have a chance, please VOTE FOR ME (you can vote once a day). Here's the link - Top 25 Creative Moms!